Sailema, 46, gave himself up after cops alerted media Thursday that they were looking for him in the alleged attack. Cops said Sailema picked up the woman at a bar in Astoria, drove her to another spot in Queens, and sexually assaulted her.

After days of being on the lam, Sailema's lawyer and members of the taxi union convinced him to give it up.

Dressed in a black windbreaker and an orange sweater and appearing gaunt, Sailema finally turned himself in about 11 a.m.

"He didn't flee," said lawyer Kevin Faga. "He laid low. He was nervous, scared. He needed to understand how the process worked."

He was charged with attempted rape, prosecutors said.

Sailema claims the 23-year-old drunken woman fell asleep in his cab. When he tried to wake her, she became enraged - attacking the diminutive cabbie and throwing his keys in the snow.

"She attacked him brutally," said Faga. "He has a lump on his head."

"She repeatedly beat him," he added. "He has two black eyes."

Sailema was in the public eye last year when he dropped off a six-month baby at a Queens firehouse.

After initially being hailed as a Good Samaritan, it was later revealed Sailema was part of a twisted plot to abandon the infant.

He was charged then with falsely reporting an incident and criminal solicitation, but the case was dismissed and sealed.